Welcome, Teachers!

Being both a physicist and a musician, I can't teach physics without teaching about music, but we don't have instruments at my school. However, there are creative ways to go around the problem.

You may have seen in other posts in my website about teaching rhythm to students and using slaps (on the desk), claps, and snaps, but on Friday as I was explaining different frequencies, the students really had a difficult time grasping different "pitches". However, having a student learn music theory and learn how to play different notes takes time and can be frustrating.

Instead, why not have each student be in charge of only one note?

Teaching simple rhythms can be pretty quick. It's a small thing that can make learning about sound so much more profound. Each student can be assigned a single note and using rhythm notation, instructed when to play. You can create all kinds of chords with students using simple things like bottles and straws. The students don't have to know what chord they are playing and because they are only in charge of one note, they don't need to know WHAT they are playing only need to know WHEN they are playing it.

The beautiful thing about using bottles with different amounts of water in them or oboes with different lengths is that students can see that a shorter distance corresponds with a higher frequency. It will only be a small step further to get them to articulate that, "Smaller wavelengths mean higher frequencies which sound higher pitched."